


The Brothers Winchester

by orphan_account



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-02 23:04:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>At the end of everything, Castiel offers Dean a choice, but Dean, being the stubborn man that he is, refuses either option and forces Castiel to come up with a different way</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Brothers Winchester

Dean fights.

He slashes at demons mindlessly, too exhausted to do more than keep lifting his arm, bringing the knife around. Ruby's knife. And isn't the irony of that a kick in the pants. He doesn't care anymore. He's gone someplace beyond thought or feeling. He fights on the side of good, but he feels a great indifference to the outcome. If it were anyone else involved in this battle, he would have taken off for distant places long ago. He has no business involving himself in the war between Heaven and Hell.

But it's too late for him to leave. It was probably too late before he was ever born.

The air is full of ash and sulfur, the choking mixture made no easier to bear by the iron scent of blood that hangs on the wind. So much blood. The ground beneath his feet is slick, churned to mud by more blood and other things that Dean can't bear to think about. A bullet that creased his shoulder and a blow to his thigh that has deeply bruised his muscles have injured him, making him move slowly. He won't stop.

A great shout goes up from the ranks of the angels when Lucifer's vessel is mortally wounded. Enormous ropes of light shoot out from their swords, encasing the King of Hell as he rises, binding his might as he deserts the dying man who housed him. Dean pauses his slaughter, watching the angels complete their mission.

He knows what their triumph means. Bitterness tastes like bile on his tongue.

The demon ranks thin as the beasts leave their hosts, knowing the battle is lost and wanting to save their own existences. Dean struggles to reach the center of their army, to reach the wounded vessel. A demon bars his way and Dean swings the knife up, a blow intended to gut it. Instead it dodges under his guard, tearing a slice of fire down his side.

He wavers, and then his knees give out. He lifts the knife even as the demon prepares to bash his head in, and slices open its thigh. Light pours out and the demon dies. Dean touches his side and his hand comes back slimed with red. It doesn't matter. He puts the knife in its sheath. There's someplace he needs to be.

Dean crawls through the mud and filth. He doesn't look down to see what he's traveling over, knowing without needing to look that the field is a charnel house of broken bodies, blood and tissue. He reaches the center of the demon army, hosts cut down as they failed to save their lord. The man is on his side, broad shoulders trembling as he tries to push himself up. The angels pay no more attention to him, knowing he is powerless and broken. His arm gives out and he crashes face first into the filth beneath him. Dean reaches him then, turning him over and holding him with the remnants of his strength.

One angel remains. Castiel stands before him, immortal face fallen into lines of grief. Dean supposes the expression is grief, because the angel looks sad, but with angels you can never tell for sure. The angel kneels in the mud, unconscious of the gobbets of flesh that litter the field.

"It is time for you to go to your true home, Dean."

The truth of his situation is written in the red blood slowly trickling down his side, pooling beneath his hip. Dean drags shaking fingers through the long strands of blood matted hair, trying to tame the unruly locks into some sort of order. The man takes an anguished breath, air whistling from his ruined lungs.

"No."

"Let it go, Dean. All men come to this."

"I can't."

"Choose, Dean. Before it is too late."

Dean wraps his hand around the calloused one of the king of Hell. "I choose him. Always him."

"He cannot go. The soul of the vessel is barred from paradise forever."

"And I won't go back to Hell. Find another way."

"Dean. You know this is not possible."

His vision is slowly going grey, the edges of his sight pulling inwards. "No. Make it possible. Do something. I won't go without him."

Castiel raises his head to the sky, communing with his superior's, Dean supposes. He doesn't care how it happens. He watches as the light slowly fades from the green-gold eyes of the fallen king.

"Wait for me, Sam. Don't go without me," Dean pleads.

The eyes flare to life briefly, and a smile ghosts across the face below him. "I don't think we're headed in the same direction."

Dean squeezes his hand, the intensity of his feelings sharpening his vision briefly. "No. I won't let it end this way."

The smile grows fainter. "I love you."

"Sammy." Moisture gathers and drips.

Castiel kneels again, trouble marring his holy face. Dean wonders how a simple family from Kansas managed to shake the immortal ones out of their centuries of indifference.

"There is another place. However, your soul will never find its eternal rest and you will not be counted on the final day."

"Limbo?" Dean dredges old theology from the depths of his fading mind.

"No. Someplace else."

The body Dean leans against grows still and memories rip holes in Dean's soul. Unbearable grief chokes what little breath he has left.

"He goes too?"

"Yes, but you must understand what you're sacrificing."

"Don't care. Do it." The last of his will deserts him then and he closes his eyes, choosing the darkness rather than letting it take him.

&gt;&gt;&gt;&lt;&lt;&lt;

Dean wakes in a field of grass beside a dirt road that barely shows through the grass. The air is full of clover and buzzing with bees. He sits up, scratching his head, looking down at his clothes. The blood and gore have gone, and he wears a simple t-shirt over a broken in pair of jeans.

He stands up, testing his legs and finding that he seems to be healed and rested. The weariness and sorrow that has ridden him for months has vanished. All the years that had fallen on him have gone also and he feels as though he can do anything, like his whole life is in front of him again.

The track gives no indication what lies at either end of it, so he turns left randomly. Something is missing, but Dean doesn't know what it is until the road goes round a hillock and stops at a gate.

A small boy is swinging on the gate, humming a nonsense song. He's about ten, but then Dean takes a closer look at the shape of his face and decides that he's closer to twelve. He looks up from his contemplation of an ant crawling along the wooden slat and sees Dean.

Memories crowd Dean's mind, pictures of sorrow and anguish, and blood and fear. Of a life haunted by loss, a childhood spent running.

"Dean!" Sam shouts, hopping down from the gate. "I've been waiting for you!"

On Sam's youthful face is no stain of grief, no bitterness of a child betrayed by his parents. No evil. The innocence that should have been his all along is there plain to see.

"Sammy?"

"There's a house, just over the hill. It's for us, to live there."

Sam reaches him and flings himself into Dean's arms. As Dean holds his brother, he touches his own face, feeling the lack of lines and missing scars. If Sam is twelve, then he has to be around sixteen.

Pulling back and tugging on Dean's hand, Sam says, "Come on, Dean! I've been here for weeks. I knew you'd come."

Looking into Sam's excited and happy face, Dean answers, "I promised, didn't I?"

"And you always keep your promises."

Sam grins, and the memories of blood and pain leave Dean's mind, floating away in the breeze until they stretch and thin out into nothingness, gone forever.

"A house of our own? To stay?" Dean asks.

"Yes, and there's lots to explore. I haven't gone very far. I knew you'd want to look around too, when you got here."

"I'm here now, Sam. I love you. And I'm never leaving you."

Sam smiles, bright and trusting. "I know."

With Sam pulling him along, Dean steps into his next life.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Astrid Lindgren's book, The Brothers Lionheart


End file.
